


Sunlight

by candles_to_stars



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Magic, Nightmares, Princes & Princesses, Royalty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:12:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5832112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candles_to_stars/pseuds/candles_to_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ronan stepped into the rooms assigned to the strange new boy, he stopped dead in his tracks. <br/>The whole room was filled with a carpet of thick grass, small blue flowers sprouting between the strands, veins circling the posts of the bed and forming a second canopy above it. And in the center of it all was a boy, a soft mirage of dust and sunlight, brought to life by sheer will and magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Epilogue

'Walk.' Fear gripped Adam's heart as he stared towards the tree line. He'd been walking for the better part of a hour now, and the village his family lived had long since disappeared behind the softly rolling hills. And my father was still standing behind me, spurring me on towards the looming forest. His anger hadn't subsided in the past hour, and I could practically feel it radiating against my back, like the warmth of a fire that could burn you when you got too close. Considering my chances and options - going further towards the forest or turning around to face my father - I decided the woods were the better choice. At least in there, I had some chance of survival, even though the rumors in town said it to be haunted by evil spirits. It contained the uncertainty of life, something that couldn't be said about what was behind me.  
If I turned around and faced my father, I had a bigger chance of dying this very moment. His mood was foul. It'd been bad for days, but today he'd just... Snapped. It was my own stupid fault, I knew that. I'd been out on the market side to buy bread and lost track of time. That was normally enough to set my father off, but combined with the "too small piece" and his sour mood, it was... Too much. 

And now here I was, and I was afraid I wouldn't see the end of the day.  
With my father behind me and the woods before me, there wasn't much chance for me. 

I made a run for it once we'd lost sight of the tree line behind us. This was the most dangerous time for me, my dad not likely to get seen now and eager, so eager to get rid of me after years of coping with my existence. I could feel him looming behind me, getting more and more focused on his goal, the finishing point.  
This was my only chance to get away. Before he got hold of me.

My legs were pounding on the forest floor, pushing me forward. My lungs burned and twigs slammed in my face while I ran through the woods as fast as I could, and still, I could hear footsteps behind me.  
I felt like I could cry.  
The forest around me whirled by so fast I had no idea whatsoever where I was going except from: Away.  
The ground was sloping down again, and chased me further, further ahead.  
For just one second, I thought maybe I could make it away. I could break free from my dad. And the next second, my foot got trapped in a hole in the ground and my ankle twisted and I went crashing down on the ground.  
The moment I hit the grass, fear gripped my body and once again curled around me like a heavy blanket constricting my movements. My ankle was on fire and I was panting and my legs burned and I couldn't get up.  
There was no way I could survive this.  
My father was on me in seconds.  
'You bastard! I should have drowned you when you were born, saved everyone of the burden you are.' His weight pressed down on my chest as he flipped me over and forced me onto the hard ground. A dim gleaming knife sat in his hand and he pressed the edge again my collarbone. My breaths came in pants and I tried keeping still, but the movement forced the point into my skin. 'Instead, I had to feed your useless asa for over seventeen years, and what do I got to show for it? A worthless son who can't even be trusted to get a single piece of bread!'  
The knife sliced. It crashed down though the skin of my chest and left a trail of red across my front.  
Oddly enough, it didn't even hurt. It felt warm and strange and I opened my mouth to try and get some air into my body, but it wouldn't work. My lungs seemed shut and I looked up at the sky uncomprehending. My fathers face appeared into my vision and I saw his mouth moving, but didn't hear what he said. Then, he disappeared and I was left alone.  
Still, it didn't hurt.  
My lungs didn't open up.  
I couldn't breathe.  
My fingers were cold.  
The only coherent thought I could form aside from these things was: I didn't want to die.  
No matter what I'd heard all these years, no matter the way I'd been treated, I wanted to live.  
The trees rustled and in a far corner of my mind I remembered the stories. The ghosts that supposedly roamed underneath these trees. Maybe I would become one of them.  
I wanted to live.  
_What do you want to do to earn it?_ Was it a voice? A thought? Maybe I really was so far away I was hallucinating things and talking to myself.  
Just... Let me live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will continue for some time, though I'm not sure where the plot will go, hihi  
> Also, I'm not a native English user, so my apologies for any mistakes.  
> Please let me know what you think!


	2. Found

The forest was warm in the late morning sun. Soft beams of sunlight filtered through the leaves and branches, coating the ground around the hem of Blue's dress in tiny specks of light.   
It really was a wonderful day to be out, she thought to herself as she bent down to pick a bright yellow flower.   
The prince's party was spread all around her, making sure no one would be able to harm her, but she wasn't afraid. The woods were open and calm today, like the sea after a storm. They didn't threaten her at all. She knew she would be safe. However, there was no telling the king's guards that kind of thing. She'd tried, once, and it'd been like talking to a brick wall. No real response and no changing their opinion. Not with something as vague as a 'feeling'. Well, Blue also had a feeling the king's guards were made up of 95% idiots, and she was pretty sure she was also right about that.

She didn't notice anything strange until she entered a small clearing. The clearing itself wasn't all that unusual, semi-round, with some flowers spread across the grass.   
Her fingers wrapped around a tiny blue flower sprouting at the top of a small unevenness in the ground, expecting it to give way and break easily.   
Instead, a part of the grass lifted with it. Underneath the patches of grass and colorful flowers, there was a boy.

'Gansey!' She cried out, shock making her lose her balance and falling backwards. She could hear two pair of hooves coming closer and looked up just in time to see her fiancee running into the clearing, both their horses lead behind him.  
'Blue!' He called out as soon as he saw her sitting on the grass, looking pale and shocked, as if she'd seen a ghost. He'd never seen her look like that. Letting go of the horses and, trusting them not to run of, he rushed at her side. 'What's wrong? Are you hurt, have you fallen?' Carefully, he placed his hand on her shoulder, knowing how weary she could be of touches, but now she seemed to melt into him. Some of the color returned to her face and her eyes were steady when they turned to his.  
'I'm fine. Gansey, there's someone under there!' The prince of Henrietta didn't know what to expect when he turned around. His fiancée was usually really level-headed, not easy to faze or panic over minor problems or imagine things. But still, he didn't quite believe there could really be someone there.  
How wrong he was.  
Most of the form was covered in grass and moss, but a single piece was torn back to reveal the curve of a cheekbone, the soft curl of eyelashes.  
'My goodness,' he whispered. Mesmerized, he reached out his hand towards the face, hooking his fingers underneath the plants still covering most of his cheek and the other side of his face. Surprise hit him when he found the vegetation wasn't in any way hard to pull off. It wasn't like on rocks or earth, not tethered in the same way. It appeared to have grown _around_ the boy - because he now saw it was indeed a boy, not older than him -, instead of onto him.   
The grass gave way easily and soon, they both looked down on the still form of a young man.  
Despite the fact that the guard had to be somewhere close by, the woods seemed disconcertingly quiet. As of the trees themselves held their breath for the grew reveal.   
The air seemed to grow heavy and despite the warmth of the sun, Gansey felt a chill run over his back.  
He knew the peasants around here said the woods were supposed to be haunted, but he'd never quite believed it until know.  
'What do you think happened?' Blue asked after the quiet had continued to grow, taking in the blood on the boy's clothes. Not thinking about it, she held out her hand to brush a stray leaf from his hair.   
He was warmer than she expected.   
Still transfixed, Gansey gently pulled away the sides of his ruined shirt to reveal a smooth chest with a single scar crossing it.  
His breath stilled as his fingers touched the skin.  
'I don't know.'   
And it was at that exact moment, he felt a soft heartbeat flutter underneath his fingertips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get the feeling this work might take me longer than I'd expected. I'm doing my best though and should have more time to work on it the next couple of weeks.  
> Cheers, love and let me know what you think!


	3. Nightmares

'I want him brought to the castle!' Blue ran next to her fiance, lifting the hems of het skirts so she wouldn't trip over them. Not for the first time, she cursed the impracticality of dresses and skirts.   
'How is this possible?' Gansey brought his horse forward and watched as the guards carefully lifted the limp body onto it's back. The moment he'd discovered the boy's heart was still beating, he'd called for them, and they'd swarmed onto the clearing like ants to a honey pastry.   
'We don't know what happened, it might not be his blood.' They both knew that was just one fragment of her question, and that there were a million more answers they both knew nothing about.   
How did he get here?  
How did these plants grow over him if he was still alive?  
Who was he?  
Who's blood was that if not his?  
How did he survive a wound that left such a scar?  
The prince grabbed her hand and helped her onto her horse before climbing up after her and racing away.

Adam's dreams were filled with trees and whispers and blood.   
Tall, foreboding shadows fell over him and blocked his vision of most of the scène, no matter how far he ran or how hard he tried, he couldn't see more than a few feet in all directions.   
The shadows called out his name, but it wasn't his _name_. There was no way they said Adam, but whatever they said instead was as much his name as Adam was. Maybe even more. It felt like the _essence_ of Adam. The core, the one thing that would remain when all the rest was taken, forced, burned away. It tickled his back and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge. If he could just make out what they said, what they called him, he might know. He might learn who he really was apart from a broken boy nobody wanted. A breath ghosted across his neck, but when he turned, no one was there.  
The shadows reached for him and wrapped around his edges.   
When he stopped for a second to look around, he heard something dripping close by. A calm, steady drip, drip, drip. His hands felt cold and wet and sticky and he didn't want to look at them, didn't want to see whatever he would see. He felt feverish and cold and hopeless.  
A soft gust of air caressed his overheated skin, and he closed his eyes upon feeling the cool wind. Pressing his eyelids together in order to try and forget the hurt, the blood, the looming, shifting, changing shadows. The breeze changed into a whistle, changed into a whisper, changed into a voice. The sound of leaves shifting against each other. The hopeless screams of a lost child. An empty laughter. Cries, sobbing, luring calls. He wanted to press his hands over his ears and make it all go away, but he couldn't.   
The voices were inside his head.  
The sound choked him, wrapping around his chest and neck in a painful burn, tighter, tighter, tighter. A white hot poke pressing against his shoulder. Hands around his throat. Broken ribs pressing in, carving, caving. Broken skin peeling away form a wound.

His eyes flew open and twisting fingers clutched at his chest, leaving angry marks across his own skin, desperate to take it all away, whatever it was.  
His lungs heaved and he started coughing violently, trying to get rid of the feeling, trying to get whatever it was that was constricting him out of his body, but it stuck in his throat, scratching the inside and he couldn't breathe, couldn't get it out and make it stop and it hurt and he felt like he was going to suffocate, like he was going to die, like he was drowning inside his own body.  
Inside his chest, his heart was hammering, trying to get out and free itself of the cage, and from far away, someone was calling him.  
Tugging, pulling, stroking, gripping him.  
Black spots drifted in and out of his vision, obscuring the all too bright light, and just like that, everything was black once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! I'm really sorry for taking so long, in my defense, this chapter was waiting to be posted to about two weeks.   
> I'll try to update sooner, but I'm currently also working on another short story featuring Gansey!  
> Love!


	4. Restless

Gansey was laying in his bed, the soft, silken sheets pressing down on the bare skin of his arms and legs. A thin layer of sweat covered his forehead and he felt bone tired, but instead of sleeping, he stared out over the vast fields of the castle of Henrietta, his mind turning and twisting and overall just far too awake.  
The castle was rather large. From his bedroom window, Gansey had a perfect view of the wide spanning lake. There were swans swimming in the lake, and he remembered Blue as a young girl being chased by one of them. It was a fond memory, the two of them feeding the swans until she'd for some reason decided to ruin the dress she was wearing by jumping into the lake.  
Needless to say, the swans hadn't been too fond of the intruder.  
Speaking of uninvited intruders, the door to his bedroom was slammed closed with far too much malice to for his headache to handle.  
'Still awake, Gansey? Have you even rested for a moment today?' Like he would rest any sooner now. A pair of boots hit the ground at the other side of the room, and before he could give any kind of answer, the bed dipped under the weight of another body flopping down on it.  
Ronan Lynch - Lord Ronan Lynch to be more precise - had never cared about proper etiquette and the social rules that came with living in a castle. He'd grown up in a larger-than-average manor about a day's ride from the castle. He came in when he wished and left when he got bored. Went wherever he liked to, whenever he wanted to and never felt the need to justify his actions to anyone. Gansey was the only person deemed capable of controlling him, but he himself wasn't all too sure of that. He didn't think anyone could ever really control Ronan Lynch. He just listened better to him than he did to others. Which was to say he listened sometimes. If he cared.  
'My mind won't quiet down enough for me to get some sleep.' Sighing, he dragged a hand across his face and through his hair, feeling the warmth of his skin and the slight sheen of sweat accumulating on his brow before turning onto his back so that he could sit up against the headboard. In this new position, he could see Ronan was sprawled out across the better half of the bed, his limbs seeming to stretch further than actually possible and were even exceeded by his attitude, giving off an air of owning not just the bed, but also the room and the castle it was placed in. He'd been right before, about the boots being discarded. His clothes where rumpled and his vest and coat were nowhere to be seen.  
'You look positively horrible though.' Gansey decided not to grace that statement with an answer, instead opting to change the subject.  
'Have you heard about what happened in the woods?'  
'The boy? Of course I've heard. Declan's heard. The kitchen maids have heard. Hell, I think the whole castle has heard by now.' He shook his head slowly at Ronan's too loud voice and excessive gestures. The young lord he called his best friend here at court was tiring just by being around him. But even so, he was here. And he was his best friend. He had to talk to him- to someone - about this, or he was certain he would go mad.  
'Ronan, it was crazy, you should have been there. It was like... Like magic. There was absolutely no way he could have laid there for long enough to let these plants grow over him and still be alive. And yet he was.' A soft smile crept over his face and his eyes fell halfway shut, so lost in the memory he didn't see Ronan's furred brow. 'And the scar. His clothes were torn and bloody and yet he just had this massive scar on his chest.' His voice slowly grew softer and his eyes closed further, conscious slowly tickling way. He knew what he'd said to Blue: They didn't know what'd happened. Bit that just meant anything could have happened. And anything was a lot of things.  
They were both quiet for a long time.  
'You should go to sleep,' Lord Ronan said eventually, turning his eyes back to the canopy that stretched above the bed instead of on the slipping , sleepy prince. He felt Gansey laying down next to him and coughing softly, but he couldn't bear looking anymore. The mattress shifted a few times, but after a while, Gansey grew stiller. He knew that would only last a moment, but it was a sign the prince had fallen asleep. In a few minutes, his nightmares and restlessness would start kicking in, and Ronan would be making sure he wouldn't hurt himself by rolling of the side of the bed or anything.  
And all the while, Ronan would stay with him. The prince had a habit of tossing and turning in his sleep, he knew for previous wakes, but today, he was also mumbling. Soft murmurs he couldn't quite make out, but he knew for a fact the words weren't English.  
He was getting worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here, it's here!  
> What is this 'learning' thing you speak of? This is totally posted in an attempt to evade my school and exams. I feel so terrible, and yet I pull stunts like this every time.
> 
> Anyway. Still a little clueless on this plot, but I'm getting there.  
> This is not meant to be some kind of Reign rip-off, just to be clear. Any similarities are coincide. 
> 
> Let mw know what you think!!  
> Lots of love


End file.
